The Hon. David H. Souter, Associate Justice (Ret.) of the *

Supreme Court of the United States, sitting by designation.

United States Court of Appeals 

For the First Circuit

No. 10-1020

BETHZAIDA CINTRÓN-LORENZO,

Plaintiff, Appellant,

v.

FONDO DEL SEGURO DEL ESTADO ET AL.,

Defendants, Appellees.

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO

[Hon. Camille L. Velez-Rive, U.S. Magistrate Judge]

Before

Lynch, Chief Judge,

Souter, Associate Justice,*

and Stahl, Circuit Judge.

Nicolás Nogueras Cartagena, with whom Maria Teresa Figueroa

Colón was on brief, for appellant.

Irene S. Soroeta-Kodesh, Solicitor General, with whom Leticia

Casalduc-Rabell, Deputy Solicitor General, Susana I. PeñagarícanoBrown, Assistant Solicitor General, Carlos George-Iguina, and

Joanna Matos Hicks, were on briefs, for the appellees.

February 4, 2011
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SOUTER, Associate Justice. The plaintiff, Bethzaida

Cintrón-Lorenzo, alleges sexual harassment and discrimination by

her employment supervisor, Orlando Aldebol-Borrero, at a Puerto

Rican government insurance fund, Fondo del Seguro del Estado, and

she has complained of this sexual misconduct in statutory and

constitutional claims against them and others over the course of

nearly eight years. This appeal challenges the district court’s

dismissal of equal protection claims brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983

and supplementary complaints under Puerto Rican statutes, the

former found to have been filed after the statute of limitations

had run. We affirm.

On the face of the pleadings and documents before the

trial court, the § 1983 action is patently untimely. The most

recent instance of allegedly forbidden action is said to have

occurred on June 19, 2003 (identified in a 2003 administrative

complaint of a violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, 42

U.S.C. § 2000e et seq., filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity

Commission). It is undisputed that the limitation period for an

equal protection claim under § 1983 is borrowed from local law and

is one year in Puerto Rico. This action was not filed until July

10, 2007.

Cintrón-Lorenzo contends that the running of the one-year

statute was tolled, first by filing her administrative complaint

with the EEOC, then by filing an earlier judicial action
"Prescription of actions is interrupted by their institution 1

before the courts, by extrajudicial claim of the creditor, and by

any act of acknowledgment of the debt by the debtor."

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(mentioning no § 1983 claim and eventually dismissed voluntarily

without prejudice), an argument that all agree turns in part on the

Puerto Rican tolling rule, P.R. Laws Ann. tit. 31 § 5303 (Official

translation 1990). Many pages of briefing address the question 1

whether the first judicial action stated non-§ 1983 causes of

action similar enough to the later equal protection claim to toll

the running of the one-year statute under the Puerto Rican rule.

See, e.g., Cintrón v. E.L.A., 127 P.R. Dec. 582 (1990). This issue

is irrelevant, however, for the one-year period had run before the

first judicial action was filed.

Although there are no translated cases from the Supreme

Court of Puerto Rico, and no cases from this circuit or from the

Supreme Court determining whether filing a Title VII complaint with

the EEOC can affect the limitation period for a related § 1983

action, cases addressing § 1981 have held the answer to be no. See

Johnson v. Ry Express Agency, Inc., 421 U.S. 454, 466 (1975); LeonNogueras v. Univ. of P.R., 964 F. Supp. 585, 589 (D.P.R. 1997).

But even if we treat the issue as undecided, the Puerto Rican rule

would apparently, at best, reset the commencement of the one-year

period at the date of filing the EEOC complaint; it would not

suspend the running of the period during pendency of the complaint

before the EEOC. Leon-Nogueras, 964 F. Supp. at 589 (an
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extrajudicial claim may serve to "restart[] the running of the . .

. statute of limitations" on the § 1983 judicial claim, but it

does not preserve the judicial claim "in a state of suspended

animation"). In this case the administrative complaint was filed

on July 10, 2003; the first judicial complaint was filed over one

year later, on August 13, 2004. Thus, giving Cintrón-Lorenzo every

possible indulgence, the § 1983 limitation period had expired

before she entered federal court the first time.

As to the local statutory actions, even if timely, the

district court was of course acting with reasonable discretion to

dismiss them without prejudice once the federal claim was out of

the case.

Affirmed.